


The Yearly Revolution

by anarmydoctor



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-20
Updated: 2011-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:11:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarmydoctor/pseuds/anarmydoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock walked smoothly through the seasons, without noticing them, without endorsing them — busy Sherlock, unseasonal Sherlock.</p><p>Until John Watson arrived in his life. To revolutionise it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Winter

 

“Seasons result from the yearly revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth’s axis relative to the plane of revolution. In the temperate and polar regions, the seasons are marked by changes in the intensity of sunlight that reaches the Earth’s surface, which generate four seasons: winter, spring, summer and autumn”.

 

Sherlock had written those lines when he was a little boy, in one of his school notebooks, with his neat handwriting. He had learnt it instantly, and deleted it even faster. The division of the year in seasons was, anyway, irrelevant; partial, Northern-Hemisphere centered, methodologically poor and absolutely inaccurate, taking into account how alarmingly fast the climatic change was developing. And, if seasons were irrelevant to his life as a child, they held even less importance when Sherlock became an adult. Because the world’s only consulting detective doesn’t need holiday, nor calendar, and just as a year can seem a week, three months can last forever. So Sherlock walked smoothly through the seasons, without noticing them, without endorsing them — busy Sherlock, unseasonal Sherlock.

  
Until John Watson arrived in his life. To revolutionise it.

 

 

 

 **Winter**

 

Winter brings the frosty cold, and brings John into Sherlock’s life. Winter can be harsh, but can also give sometimes, if you know how to observe it, unexpected beauty. Fortunately, Sherlock is one of the most observant men on the Earth. Unfortunately, Sherlock doesn’t know that about the winter. Sherlock doesn’t even know the winter has already started. He only knows about how cold it is, and about how good it feels wearing his coat like a shield against the frozen air of London.

  
And that’s why he frowns a little at how inadequately wrapped that army doctor is; that uprooted warrior that has just come through the door. He thinks that, while he puts his coat and scarf in one swift motion. John Watson isn’t even wearing a scarf. Had the soldier forgotten about this London cold? Obviously not. Maybe he loves to feel the cold. Maybe, in fact, he missed the London cold, and he wants to feel it; he wants to feel he is at home, finally back at home.

  
Sherlock is then assaulted by a wave of excitement, as he realizes that he has met John Watson in the middle of his re-acclimatisation to London, to civilian life, to life. Sherlock hums happily to himself: the best data for an investigation is that which is collected in the midst of metamorphosis.

  
So Sherlock can’t restrain himself; he wants to be more than John’s observer, he wants to be John’s catalyst, speeding up the change, increasing the rate of reaction without being consumed in the process. And that’s how, in just one day, instead of two months, John leaves the cane, the shell, the fear, the loneliness of a green apple in a hotel room, the sand and the wince; he leaves all that behind, and he goes from limping to running, without even having walked. And that’s how, without Sherlock noticing, the catalyst is, for once, consumed in the process.

  
And then, during that winter, when they run across the city and through the cold, Sherlock feels that, although John runs behind him, he’s actually the one following John; following his open laugh, his intoxicanting energy, his sincere admiration. Sherlock’s feet don’t touch the floor, his long coat waves behind him, and in his wake, John acclimates, John loosens up, John is _more_ John, a better John than he has ever been. And Sherlock is more Sherlock, a better Sherlock than he has ever been; but Sherlock cannot know that yet. It’s too early.

  
When John completely acclimates, so that he doesn’t need to feel the cold anymore to remember he is back at home, jumpers and cardigans basically become the uniform of John being John. To Sherlock, for whom everything which is not a suit or a pair of pyjamas is a piece of disguise, those jumpers and cardigans are nothing more than John’s persistence in concealing the dormant warrior beneath a civilised, anodyne skin. If John let him, Sherlock would dress John showing his true colours, to make John positively flame in the battlefield, so nobody could ever underestimate him. Because Sherlock cannot abide underestimation — it’s basically the worst, most flagrant mistake in any observation procedure, because measuring the potential of things is the key to understanding their truth, and sometimes Sherlock feels as though he’s the only one who knows how to read it.

  
And with that, suddenly, Sherlock realises how much he has to thank to those jumpers and cardigans for; how much he has to appreciate them. They mean that he alone can read under John’s surface. Measure John’s potential. Only Sherlock can see the stone beneath the wool. Only him.

  
Sadly, Sherlock won’t discover his love for John’s jumpers until the last days of winter. Ah, Sherlock, unseasonal Sherlock. You, who wrote in your child’s notebook, with your child’s handwriting, and your child’s innocence, about the movement of the planets; you, who know about the evils that inhabit the hearts of men, and know about the good that inhabits the injured heart of John; you, who know about the hard core in the apple. What you don’t know, however, is that the spring is just around the corner. Sherlock, you who know that under the snow lies green grass, cannot know that the spring will reveal to you so much more about John than you could have predicted.

  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amazingly talented 'MarieLikesToDraw' has made this beautiful, flawless piece of art for my fic: http://archiveofourown.org/works/232566. I have no words :'}  
> And the awesome waalkchan has perfectly capturated John in winter with this lovely drawning too: http://waalkchan.tumblr.com/post/8324669475/so-um-this-is-for-rosalia-for-the-winter-part Thank you so much! <3


	2. Spring

 

Spring is the season of the rain and the poets. Sherlock hates the poets and loves the rain. In regard to the poets, it’s best not to ask him. In regard to the rain, Sherlock would tell you that he loves it because, under the rain, everything becomes accelerated, everything becomes uniform. In the pattern of those movements, Sherlock could draw out London’s behaviour as though it were a constellation, its rush and its routines; the perfect map for London: Sherlock’s London Map.

 

Sherlock loves to observe that movement, to soak up the rush and the rain. That’s why Sherlock never takes an umbrella. Also, they remind him too much of Mycroft, and because, after all, the umbrella is an absurd, flamboyant invention; too big for one person and too small for two people. Although Sherlock doesn’t discover that until he shares his first umbrella with John.

 

Because John happens to be an umbrella enthusiastic. He always takes a folding umbrella in the pocket of his black parka. Sherlock looks at it disapprovingly, until one day when he realises that, in John’s hands, an umbrella is a lethal weapon that can knock a giant to the floor. The giant in question had been throttling Sherlock with a certain intent, and who now lies on his knees, bracing the two (maybe three) ribs that have been fractured by a blunt, surprisingly useful, but now ruined umbrella.

 

John is panting and smiling.

 

Sherlock buys John a new umbrella.

 

But what ultimately convinces Sherlock about the secret pleasure of umbrellas is the first time they employ John’s umbrella for its primary use. It’s pouring, so John opens it, and after a few ridiculous, awkward seconds, during which John tries to cover both of them (a noble act, but one which means he almost has to walk on his tiptoes), Sherlock holds the umbrella with a little huff, and then they walk close, very close, under the umbrella, under the rain. And when the downpour ceases they keep walking, pressed together in soaked silence, under the umbrella. The unpredictable London weather gives them a blue sky, and everything becomes warmer, shinier, clearer. And then, under the umbrella, Sherlock understands. Sherlock understands the spring. Sherlock understands the poets and their verses.

 

Sherlock understands that he loves John. It’s an unmistakable fact. Sherlock feels overwhelmed but, somehow, a touch relieved because he thinks that’s the conclusion; that’s the answer to the puzzle. The last step of the procedure. Case closed.

 

Winter brought John to him and, as they ran across the cold, Sherlock gave John back to London. Now spring brings to Sherlock the disconcerting certainty of the secret, ticklish, comfortable heat that’s settled in his chest and seems like an umbrella: too big for one heart and too small for two hearts. An incomplete heat, which needs to be two and not one and a half.

 

However, Sherlock doesn’t know. He _doesn’t know_ ; he, who always knew; he, who even knew to see the stone beneath the wool, he doesn’t know; Sherlock doesn’t dare (because, Sherlock, that’s the right verb), he doesn’t _dare_ to read, to know, what’s written in John’s heart.

 

Because it’s early. Sherlock’s heart, grown to be fruit of the season, needs more time, more sunlight. Sherlock can’t pick it, can’t bite it, can’t taste it, but he can feel it. Feel it _unripe_. Because it’s _too_ early. Because, Sherlock, you have to survive the summer, you have to survive your first summer with John in order to be able to understand, to be able to _dare_. Because, Sherlock, you don’t know what summer is, what summer brings. Summer brings (poor Sherlock, unseasonal, busy Sherlock, absolutely unaware of this) the desire.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks so much to my wonderful, perfect beta, Sophie. This couldn't be possible without her. And thanks to my readers, for your comments here and on tumblr, and your warm encouragement. You are the best! :)


	3. Summer

 

Summer relegates jumpers, cardigans and long sleeved shirts, and unfolds, before Sherlock’s surprised eyes, an unwrapped, unjumpered, unadultered John. Sherlock discovers that, in summer, John enjoys going for a run in Regents Park in the morning, walks barefooted in the flat, and tans very fast, which makes his hair seem blonder and his smile look wider.

 

Maybe his smile actually is wider in summer. Sherlock can’t be sure. He’d want to be allowed to measure John’s smile. To establish the exact distance from one corner to another. To ascertain the precise depth of the light dimples in his cheeks, the number of teeth he shows everytime, the number of wrinkles around his eyes. Sherlock would do it with his fingertips, light touches, methodical, tender, feather touches; counting under his breath; mentally noting the texture, the dimensions, the bounds, the relief, the coordinates, the scale of the map. Sherlock’s John Map. And he’d want to compare John’s smile when he’s smiling at Sherlock with when he smiles at everyone else. Because Sherlock would guess (if he guessed); he would bet (if he bet, if he bet his heart for John, only for John and the width of his smile), he would say that John smiles wider when it’s Sherlock that caused him to smile. But Sherlock can’t be sure.

 

In summer, John wears jeans and t-shirts, and there’s a red t-shirt that will be Sherlock’s favourite for one day, until the next morning when John wears a blue one that definitely suits him better. But all that is before Sherlock sees that grey t-shirt, with the Barts School of Medicine logo written across its front, that seems to wrap John in boyish anticipation and sweet, tempting strength, and enhances his tanned skin. His skin.

 

John’s skin. The infinite textures, the undetermined bounds, the fascinating unevenness. John’s moles, that burn in his right wrist. The hair of his forearms, the hair that Sherlock feels stand on end under his knuckles, when one day, totally unintentionally (well, maybe not so _totally unintentionally_ ) they slightly rub the underside of John’s right elbow when they are getting into a cab. Sherlock’s brain registers the reaction, and it also registers John’s responsive look, but it stops there. Coward, Sherlock’s coward heart, is making his brain clumsy and imprecise and so he is putting the data away, in a box, on the top of a wardobre in his mind, as John had done with his jumpers in his room. It’s too early. But save the data, Sherlock, you’ll need it. When your heart is prepared, you’ll need the data so that your brain can say _now_.

 

Sherlock’s brain buzzes at night. He can’t sleep. And when he can’t sleep, he climbs the fourteen steps to the upstairs bedroom, and looks at John sleeping through the ajar door. Sherlock dives into John’s sleep patterns like one would into the ocean, and lets John’s breath rock him, drifting slowly, feeling John surround him, feeling John. So, when John has a nightmare, Sherlock suffers too, and he’d want to wake him, rescue him, bring him back. But he can’t. And if John’s breath is steady and smooth, Sherlock is lulled by its murmur, until he nearly falls asleep against the door, dampening the wood with hot breath. But he can’t. He always walks down the fourteen steps, noiseless, wrapped in sadness and want. He always goes back his bed at some point, whether it be after minutes or hours, because he can’t allow himself be found out. Because he can’t allow himself to miss John.

 

Sherlock knows is not right to look at John in his sleep. And he knows it is certainly not right to look at John in his sleep in summer. Because, in summer, John sleeps naked over the covers, and the moon, the same moon that was alone with John in the desert, that moon that met John before Sherlock, is now his accomplice, and for Sherlock (its partner in crime) it draws and details John’s body with obscene accuracy. Narrow ankles and wrists, broad shoulders and thighs, the profile of his nose, the shape of his cock, the blond halo of his eyelashes, of his hair slightly stuck to his forehead by sweet sweat. Solid, edible John. Dreaming, dream John.

 

Sherlock rests his left cheekbone against the doorframe, and gently pushes the bedroom door, just a few inches, with his nose. He does this, though he knows logically that it makes no difference; he knows that doesn’t make him closer to John, to John’s body. He knows he will never cross the threshold. He knows the mattress will never sink under the weight of their two bodies joined, and the moon will never draw Sherlock’s back, tensing and relaxing in a languid, intimate pace, John’s hands running over it, knowing it, knowing him, leading him harder, faster, deeper, closer, closer, closer, _ohgod_. And he will never lick the sweat from John’s temple while his orgasm is sweeping away the buzz, the fear, the loneliness, the nightmares. Sweeping everything away.

 

That’s what Sherlock thinks, with his mind clouded by fear; with his heart hurting, frustrated, burning; with the desire burning and begging under his skin. Ah Sherlock, be patient, don’t be afraid. Wait, like the moon has waited all this time. Wait, like the moon waits every day to light John, for you, every night. Wait and breathe deeply, Sherlock. Be prepared for the revolution.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more, thank you so much to Sophie, my amazing beta. She makes everything better, she inspires me and encourages me and she's a fucking genius. And thanks again to my readers and tumblr-followers; hope you enjoyed this chapter! <3


	4. Autumn

 

 

Autumn seems to take everything away. The leaves. The hours of daylight. It takes the flushed skin, the heavy energy of the air, the dense heat that had intoxicated Sherlock’s senses. However, it doesn’t take the love or the desire, and Sherlock feels, for the first time, that he’s a slave of the calendar, a slave of the yearly revolution of the Earth. Sherlock (poor Sherlock, trapped between reason and season **)** finds himself waiting for the winter to share a chase with John against the cold; waiting for the spring to share an umbrella with John under the rain or a blue sky; waiting for the summer to share the image of John’s naked body with the moon.

 

Sherlock doesn’t imagine that autumn is, par excellence, the season where everything begins. However, though one could think that autumn closes and fades, it’s actually the time when after the befuddling heat; after the long, lazy days of summer, the sleepy beating of life awakens once more. School starts, and routines begin, business hours as usual, the entire city begins to recover its vigorous and violent pulse. And suddenly it becomes clear that autumn is, without doubt, a season made for Sherlock. Now, in his element, Sherlock rises and John, by his side, flames with his colours in the battlefield.

 

Sherlock and John run across the September cold, that doesn’t pierce the skin yet but still makes them feel alive. Sherlock’s heart beats strong, in time with the pace of John’s steps as John follows him. Sherlock doesn’t need to turn his head to know it, he just listens to those strong footsteps in the bed of leaves; he hears how two of his steps mean that John takes three just to catch Sherlock’s stride, which makes Sherlock love him even more (yes, that’s it, love John so much it hurts, love John in the full race, love John in the bed of leaves). And after the chase, they walk close, no longer needing their excuse-umbrella to let their shoulders (shoulder-elbow-hip and, sometimes, even the back of their hands) touch, and every brush helps Sherlock to better understand the trade of the poets.

 

They arrive home, and it’s a dark and clear autumn night; John says _good night_ and he starts to take his jumper off while climbing the fourteen steps, revealing just a bit of skin at the waist, and Sherlock feels, suddenly, the summer coming back in an unexpected wave that leaves him shuddering; that leaves him with nothing. And, shuddering, he goes to bed, and dreams he is the moon, orbiting John, lighting him- _thinking_ he is lighting him, but, like the moon, actually just reflecting light. John’s light.

 

The next morning, Sherlock wakes up and finds John in the kitchen, leaning back against the table, with a mug of tea in his hand. He’s wearing a loose hoodie, his hair is a mess and (Sherlock can see it when he approaches the sink to get his own cup of tea) he has pillow marks from sleep on the right side of his face. Sherlock feels his heart bursting its banks with love for John; his mind fighting to control the overflow.

 

John has said something, but Sherlock is distracted. The autumn sun makes John’s hair shine. John smiles. He’s sad and something more. John says it again: _Today it’s a year since I got shot_. He laughs, nervous. _We should celebrate_ , he adds. John is nervous, sad, and something else. Sherlock looks to him, looks to his sadness, his nervousness, and the puzzle that’s the something else, and Sherlock’s lips, betraying his brain, whisper _Show me_. John frowns and smiles, bewildered. Intrigued. Sherlock’s brain is silent now, and his mouth takes advantage and says, like it’s printing letters in the air of the kitchen: _Show me. Show me your wound_. John, who’s staring at Sherlock’s lips, like he was watching those last four words dawning, lifts his eyes to Sherlock’s. John’s eyes, Sherlock notes, are bluer in spring and summer, but greyer, deeper, in winter and autumn.

 

John licks his lips, and, without breaking eye contact with Sherlock, John, the stone beneath the wool; John, the hard core inside the apple; John, the John of the little revolutions, takes his hoodie off. And then, John, the same John that seemed to be light years away, is now undressed from the waist up, and so close, so close that Sherlock needs to blink to bring him back into focus again.

 

Proud, before Sherlock's eyes, lies the wound, the wound that not even the moon could show him in such truth and perfection. John breathes, agitated, nervous and something else. But trusting. Sherlock leans to the wound, and again, his rebel lips, so close (so close Sherlock, so close that you are breathing on the wound, on John’s skin), murmur _Happy Birthday_. And John laughs, with his open laugh, and relaxes, comfortable, warm, and something more.

 

And then, just then, because then Sherlock is ready, and because he has lived through the cold, the rain, the heat with John, finally Sherlock _dares_. Sherlock looks. And he sees. And he finally reads the something more in John– he reads the complicity, he reads the unmistakable _yes_. So, as John says _yes_ with his skin and his eyes and his parted lips, Sherlock’s brain says _now_ , and Sherlock’s lips overtake him once more, kissing John’s wound. John’s skin. John’s yes. John.

 

The Earth is tilted 23,5 degrees on its axis, and its speed of revolution around the Sun is 18,5 miles per second. The Sun's rays reach the Earth's surface obliquely and bathe 221B Baker Street in light. They create a golden halo in John’s messy hair and give Sherlock’s eyes the trace of something cosmic. And they cast a perfect silhouette on the kitchen wall, their profiles shaped as two figures in a shadow play, two figures melting into one. Because Sherlock, who is no more the unaware, unseasonal Sherlock of last autumn, and John, who is no more the rootless, dormant John, are kissing.

 

And maybe that little boy with the neat writing, who decided to forget what his astronomy book said, was right, because Sherlock and John have broken the pattern of their orbit, and they collide now, tenderly, hungrily. Because Sherlock and John kiss, and, in the grand scheme of things, in the big dance of the Universe, that’s actually the only movement that matters now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my thanks, as always, for Sophie, my cosmic, perfect beta. I am posting this now and I am already missing it, missing this moving, beautiful experience that was sharing with my readers the slow walking of Sherlock through the seasons. Thanks for all your reviews and your sweet words! <3

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first long fic I write and I it wouldn't have been possible without Sophie, my amazing, brilliant beta, my catalyst. Thank you so much.


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